


let's call it gothic romance

by HimereCalliope



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, regional gothic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27181619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HimereCalliope/pseuds/HimereCalliope
Summary: It’s what the kids might callBuzzfeed Unsolved gothic.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	let's call it gothic romance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BiffElderberry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiffElderberry/gifts).



It’s always like this, Shane thinks. And there’s something nice about that, that consistency and predictability. That sense that no matter what, some things are the same every time. The off-peak flights to rural airports, the dingy rental cars, the cheap hotel – or motel – rooms. Everything just inexpensive enough to let you know there’s a reason for the low price beyond the off-season rates, and to suggest that you might not want to ask any questions. That vague sense, lurking as if just out of frame, that you’re not quite as same as you want to think you are. 

And then the eternal weirdness of traveling with colleagues. Even as much as they’ve done this, now, over the past couple of years, that’s something that never goes away. Shane’s a sociable guy – likable, even, he likes to think – but there’s a difference between getting along with someone nine-to-five and going on endless road trips and midnight tours of haunted coal mines with them. You see a different side of people. Usually patient people become irritable, calm professionals become worriers, and if you add just that little extra dollop of a problem, anyone could tip over into unrecognizable. There’s an unspoken _what happens on location shoots stays tucked the fuck away, thank you_ to it all. 

_(”how real is this? I mean, I know it’s real, but… you know what I mean.”)_

_(“how real do you want it to be?”)_

And then there’s the general unfamiliarness, if that’s a word, of whatever place they end up in. The way ordinary buildings are just shaped slightly differently, or something exactly the same, but arranged just that bit differently enough to fully go for that uncanny valley feel. The vage way even the air smells… not _wrong_ , because being different doesn’t make something automatically wrong, but _unknown_ in a way that nudges your lizard brain into higher alert. 

It’s what the kids might call _Buzzfeed Unsolved gothic_. Or _location shoot behind-the-scenes gothic_ , since none of this actually makes it into the episodes. 

It’s something he actually enjoys about traveling – even on a Buzzfeed budget – this sort of full experience of a different place. The way it makes your senses wake up and take notice. But there’s no denying that the other side of excitement is danger, and this type of danger is far more real than the kind Ryan keeps talking himself into throwing himself into (admittedly, with a little help from Shane). 

_(”what would you do, though, if it turns out I’m right? if a demon jumps out and grabs me, and tries to… I don’t know, drag me to hell or something? because you’re not prepared for that, are you? I don’t think a demon would respond well to your witty quips.”)_

There is – objectively – a danger to being a fish out of water. To now knowing your surroundings, now knowing the people and the local customs, not knowing what subtle warning signs to watch out for. Not knowing where or when someone might likely try to to mug you, or kill you, or kidnap you and forcibly inject you with heroin. 

It’s not that Shane is particularly worried about any of these things, on a day-to-day basis. There’s an inherent, base level of danger to life, and that, he thinks, isn’t really something to worry about any more than you generally, when you’re healthy, worry about breathing. But it is something he is aware of – and oddly, not something Ryan ever seems to notice. 

It’s not that Ryan’s naive, exactly – though if he was, that would actually in some ways make more sense of the way he thinks and the things he chooses to believe in. No, he just has a way of taking people and places as they come, of not looking beneath – sometimes barely even seeing – the surface of things he isn’t focused on. 

_(“why aren’t you surprised? why aren’t you– I don’t know,_ something _? this is… it’s not a small deal, okay?”)_

It might, Shane things, in a weird way even be good for him. Ryan is a worrier even on the best of days. Not a coward – cowards don’t make a career out of hunting the thing they fear most in the world, however irrationally – but a definite worrier. And yet it’s the fictional things that seem to worry him most, not the real world threats. 

Like: The motel they’re staying in tonight ( _”yeah, I know, but it’s the only one in driving distance of the old prison”_ ) is not so much in a bad part of town as it _is_ the bad part of town. There’s an off-brand burger place to one side of it, something that looks entirely too much like a brothel to the other, and as far as Shane can see, only a few shoddy-looking and possibly abandoned structures along the road that leads into the actual town part of the town. ( _”it’s a_ motel _. I don’t know what you were expecting.”_ ) Their chances of being murdered are, in Shane’s unprofessional estimation, significantly higher here than they will be tomorrow at a bunch of abandoned ruins in the middle of nowhere. Here, there are almost definitely drug deals going down in the parking lot, and quite possibly worse sorts of deals, too. 

Like a sensible person – or possibly just a self-aware coward – Shane simply stays away. Lets whatever happens here happen, and hopes that if they don’t interfere with the local business, the locals and whatever their business is won’t feel the need to interfere with them. It’s a system that’s worked well so far. There’s a certain magic – metaphorical only – to showing up with the look of displaced urbanites and the words _”we’re filming a youtube series about ghosts”_. Unless the locals happen to be involved in some sort of real-life Scooby-Doo plot, it’s the sort thing that gets them dismissed in all the ways they probably want to be. It’s like a flashing neon sign saying _We’re not a threat_ , except, well, believable. 

And it’ll work, Shane thinks, right up until someone has actual malicious intentions beyond simply keeping up whatever shady activities their up to out of view of the ghost tourists. Then they’ll be the easiest prey. Again, not a thing he tends to worry about, but sometimes when a parking lot is just badly lit enough, and you’re operating on two and a half hours of sleep, give or take some jetlag, you can’t help but wonder how your death at the hands of a serial killer might be reported. Would it be considered ironic if it happened while filming _Supernatural_ and not _True Crime_? 

If the killer was good at hiding the bodies, if, in the eyes of everyone else, he and Ryan just vanished, never to be heard from again, would other cold-case-type shows investigate? Try to follow their footsteps and look for clues? Or summon their ghosts? Somehow, that would be weirdly satisfying, he thinks. Except for the part where he would be dead and unable to appreciate it. 

_”What are you thinking about?”_

Shane doesn’t jump, doesn’t even startle slightly, to Ryan’s obvious annoyance. He clearly snuck up quietly, but Shane just sort of expects Ryan to be nearby these days. 

“About how we’re most likely to die.” 

Ryan comes to stand next to him at the window, close. Another thing that’s new and potentially, theoretically dangerous. “You too, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Shane says, and kisses him. 

It’s not quite familiar yet, but. He likes it. 


End file.
